Bubonic Plague Spreads In Madagascar

An outbreak of bubonic plague in Madagascar has now claimed almost 50
victims and is spreading to the island's capital, officials warned
today.

The health ministry said there had been 138 suspected cases since the
beginning of the year and warned that the death toll was likely to
rise in coming months.

Two people have been infected in the capital of Antananarivo, one of
them dying, and health workers have mounted a pest control campaign
through slum areas around the city.

The health ministry said 200 households had been 'disinfected' this
month, adding that those who had contact with the infected had been
given antibiotics in a bid to arrest the spread the disease.

The World Health Organization last week said 40 people had died as a
result of plague, which was first identified in August.

Plague is spread by fleas and mostly affects rats, but humans can also
contract the disease if they are bitten by a disease-carrying flea.

The bubonic form prompts swelling of the lymph node, but can be
treated with antibiotics.

The pneumonic version, affecting the lungs, can be spread from person
to person through coughing and can kill within 24 hours.

The situation in Madagascar is all the more worrying because of a high
level of resistance to insecticides targeting fleas, the United
Nations health agency said.
In Ankasina, a slum outside Antananarivo, the family of the young
woman who died from the plague said they have been stigmatised by the
community.

According to Bernadette Rasoarimanana, the mother of the deceased
woman, community members have been giving them 'dirty looks' since the
death of her daughter.

Residents of the poor and overcrowded slum speak of squalid
conditions, infested with rats, increasing the risk of infection.

'Our neighbourhood is really dirty and has been neglected by the state
for a long time,' she said.

Plague often breaks out in the vast island nation, and is usually at
its worst between October and March.

The last case of plague in the capital was ten years ago, said
Christophe Rogier, of the island's Institut Pasteur.

'It is possible that the plague continued to survive in Antananarivo
for ten years without touching humans,' with the virus restricted to
its rat population, he said.

'Rats are a natural reservoir of the plague, and they also survive the plague.'

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the country
has recorded on average 500 cases of plague every year since 2009.

The Black Death, otherwise known as the bubonic plague, is estimated
to have killed some 25million people across Europe in the Middle Ages.
--AIT